Quiet - We Hold Vigil for the Dead
by The Defender of the Faith
Summary: Damian woke one day. And he was alive. And Grayson was not. Grayson had been murdered. He had died at the hands of Luthor, without his Robin by his side. And Damian had come back. And Grayson had not.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Father busies himself around Damian's room: Damian himself is confined to bed rest he does not need and buried under blankets he _certainly _does not need but that make Pennyworth feel better. So he allows them. After all, it is not every day someone returns from the dead.

Damian watches Father adjust some meaningless ornament for a second time before turning to leave, and decides this is as good a time as any to ask the question that has weighed more and more upon his mind.

"Father?" Father turns, an almost smile on his face that now seems present almost any time he looks at Damian.

"Where is Grayson?"

An indescribable expression shutters Father's face down, rendering it as unreadable as his most stoic mask. Damian feels the urge to fill the sudden gaping silence with words.

"I assumed he was busy or on a mission; something that would stop him from being there to save me but I would've thought he'd have at least contacted me by now, is all. If it's a secret you don't have to tell me-"

"You don't need to know. Just… lie down, Damian. You can rest and we'll talk when you feel better…"

"I feel fine now, Father. Just tell me where he is or… or what _mission _he's on and I will stop bothering you, I promise!"

"Damian..."

"Please, Father. If you do not tell me I _will_ go right now to find it out myself. I… I will call Colin or fly to anywhere but here and ask _anyone but you_."

"Dam… you need to stay calm."

"Fine."

"Then, I… I'm sorry, Damian. He's gone."

Damian's breath stops, feels caught in his chest; a vice clamps against his skull and all he can come up with are denials.

"Gone… to Tamaran? He is in space again. With-"

"He was captured by the Crime Syndicate. He was very brave, Damian, to the last. But there was a bomb tied into his heartbeat… We had to stop it. I was there. You know."

Father speaks strangely, and his words have no meaning and Damian _remembers _when he looked through Father's security recordings for his reveal of Todd's death and it was nothing like this Father should not sound like this, this is not how he would tell Damian that Grayson was… was…

"NO! You lie!" Damian flies upward, shoving blankets aside and lurches, unbalanced in onetwothree ways all at once.

Father rushes to his side as if Damian is in danger of injuring himself when Grayson is DE-

"He is not gone! I would know it!"

"Damian get back in bed…"

"Stop lying to me! Where is Grayson?"

"You know we can't bury heroes in private cemeteries anymore, not since-"

"I was there for the body harvesting incident, I am not referring to the harvesting incident, Grayson is not buried in a cemetery _anywhere _he is alive and well and I am _going _to him STOP LYING TO ME FATHER WHERE IS GRAYSON?"

Footsteps run to his room onetwoandonetwoandonetwo Pennyworth is here and _Father is still lying and _DAMIAN WILL BEAT THE TRUTH OUT OF FATHER HIMSELF

Arms wrap around Damian, Pennyworth, and it is a _foolish _decision since Damian could easily snap the man in two like this but Pennyworth is crying and apologizing and…

Damian, who has known Pennyworth for so long… he cannot deny that Pennyworth believes, that Pennyworth knows…

Alfred has never been wrong before. So if Alfred says that Grayson… that Dick is… that Dick… dead? Dead? Not Grayson. Not without Damian to protect him… Not without his Robin.

Damian _shudders _and even the familiar presence of Pennyworth is too much. "Where?"

Father opens his mouth and if he says one more word about private cemeteries and body harvests Damian will blow his head _clean off his shoulders _but Pennyworth says "By his parents," and one second later there are two Damian sized holes in the universe: one where he'd been standing a moment ago, and one boiling in his empty chest.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

The grass is cold and wet, and the chilling dew seeps into Damian's pants and clings to his skin. The marble headstone tasked with communicating the essence of Grayson's being is too cold to touch. Damian tried, once and it burned him so badly he can still feel it under his fingers.

There is a uniform up in the cave, blue and black and so empty Damian thinks it might be the only thing to understand how he feels.

There was a costume for Damian, too, but Father took it down with the stupid almost smile he was still wearing. Damian wished he hadn't. If the suit was all that was left of Nightwing, then it was Damian's duty to ensure that it would not be left alone.

Father would not have understood this, and Damian did not explain it.

Poor Grayson. Beaten and bloodied and tortured for endless days only to die at the end, knowing his life would be the doom of anyone who had come to save him…

Damian wondered if he had been at all angry at his Robin, who had not been there to so much as try to save him.

Damian wondered at himself. Wondered, and loathed. How could it be, that though he had been dead and Grayson dead as well, Damian could not remember seeing him? Damian could only remember the faintest feelings and impressions from death but… but he felt quite sure that he had not seen Grayson.

Perhaps that, more than anything, made him a failure as a Robin. If Grayson had been in his position, surely he would not have failed to remember Damian. For that matter, why had Father not resurrected Grayson as well?

The explanation Damian had received was that Father had been forced to choose one, and that Damian was younger and this is what Grayson would have wanted.

Well, it was not what Damian wanted! It was because of him, _his _death, that Father had not been able to resurrect Grayson! That Father had been forced to choose.

Poor Grayson; tortured, murdered, and forgotten by the very person responsible for his remaining dead.

Surely he wished he had never taken Robin from the insufferably perfect Drake in the first place.

Damian would rather have stayed with his Mother than to have caused this. Poor, poor Grayson, thanklessly tasked with raising the most horrible, insufferable, pigheaded, obtuse child in the world while being the _true _heir to the mantle of Batman, while largely abandoned by most of his would-be allies, while running the League and still trying so so hard to give an ungrateful Damian a childhood.

Damian sniffled, and wiped his eyes and nose off on his sleeve. He knew there were people who didn't think him worthy of the honor of mourning Grayson, especially on his grave.

As much as Drake had tried to protect him from the knowledge… he knew.

Mostly, they were the same people as had said that Grayson was a fool for taking him in and making him Robin in the first place.

Whatever else one could say about those people, they had been right before.

Damian hiccuped again, and knew with perfect clarity that Grayson had kneeled at his grave, just as he was kneeling now.

Yet another way Damian Wayne had caused Dick Grayson far more pain than he had ever deserved. Would Grayson even be remembered? Damian knew that people tended to look down on him, considering him a second-rate imitation Batman at best. Perhaps his memory would be lost forever.

Father did not even seem to care that Grayson was gone! He was more reclusive, sure, but deeply mourning? No, no, no, and if Father could not mourn and love Grayson after his death…

Damian would. Damian would remember Grayson forever and ever, no matter what anyone else did. He would think about him every day and make sure he _never _forgot a single moment they had spent together.

Except… he'd already forgotten, hadn't he? Grayson must have found him in the afterlife, of _course _Grayson would seek him out. But Damian… Damian had no memory of it. He had forgotten Grayson already.

And if the man was happy or sad or lonely or angry Damian didn't _know _because he'd forgotten something so _important _it hurt and if he had already forgotten Grayson how could he claim to love him how could he keep Grayson's memory, sosososo important _alive_?

Damian could not keep the empty costume company. He could not take care of Grayson. He could not even stay up past 9:00 when it wasn't a patrol night.

One day everyone would forget about Grayson. One day people would say: 'Who was that first partner Batman had?' and someone would answer: 'Oh, I think it was The Robin something or other.' But none of them would remember _Grayson_.

No one would tell stories about his pranks or remember his laugh or recount how he would eat Superman icecream to annoy Father… who, even now, could remember what a great Batman Grayson had been?

Drake had been gone. Gordan occupied, Todd insane…

Really, the only people who knew what Grayson had been were himself and… and…

A wrinkled hand, strong and steady against his shoulder, before Damian saw the man kneel in the grass beside him. He turned away and choked on his sorrow. Eleven years was not, apparently, enough time to learn to control the cry that forced past his lips.

"Hush. Hush now, my dear boy. We will honor our Dear Master Richard together, will we not? Hush now. We will hold our vigil for the dead."


End file.
